Y B YERAGATTI Vs. SARVODAYA SHIKSHANA TRUST

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, Y.B, Yergatti, was an Assistant Teacher in the New English School at AInawar in Dharwar District. The said School is managed by the 1st respondent-Sarvodaya Shikshana Trust of Dharwar. The 2nd respondent is the Head Master of the School in question. The 3rd respondent is the Joint Director of Public Instructions, Belgaum Division, Belgaum. The 4th respondent is the Educational Appellate Tribunal, Dharwar, (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal) and the 5th respondent is a teacher in the School in question run by the 1st respondent. Briefly stated the facts leading to this petition are as follows: The petitioner was terminated in the service of the 1st respondent purporting to act under the instructions of the 3rd respondent to fall in line with the staff pattern prescribed for the Schools run by the 1st respondent, as he was the junior most Assistant Master in its employ. The petitioner questioned his termination before the I Additional District Judge, Dharwar, who was the Educational Appellate Tribunal designated under the Karnataka Private Educational Institutions (Discipline and Control) Act, 1975, (hereinafter referred to as the Act). In that Mis. Appeal No. 4/1980 the Tribunal came to the conclusion that without first determining the seniority of the staff employed by the 1st respondent-Trust in the various Schools run by it, it could not retrench the petitioner. Therefore, it gave the following direction:

(2.) Therefore, the management prepared the seniority list of the three Schools run by it aided by the Government as aided institutions under the relevant Grant-in-Aid Code. In that seniority list, the petitioner was placed in the cadre of Assistant "Masters at the lowest. Therefore, he was not accommodated as directed by the Tribunal. Aggrieved by the same, the petitioner filed Execution Case No. 5/1982 before the same Tribunal (respondent-4). The Tribunal after holding an enquiry came to the conclusion that the execution petition was liable to be dismissed, that there was nothing to execute in as much as the direction of the Tribunal to prepare the seniority list after notice to the petitioner and other Assistant Masters etc had indeed been prepared. In fact, the Tribunal also, in my view, unnecessarily examined some of the contentions advanced on the merits of the case which was impermissible for it to do while exercising its jurisdiction on the execution side. Aggrieved by that order of the Tribunal in Execution Case No. 5/1982, the petitioner has approached this Court to have the same quashed with consequential directions inter alia contending that the Tribunal had declined to exercise the jurisdiction despite the case made out on merits by the petitioner before it. It would be useful to summarise the contentions advanced before this Court. (1) That the 4th respondent-Tribunal in the Execution Case failed to see that the petitioner was senior to respondent-5; (2) That the seniority list as per Ex.P3 prepared by the 1st and the 2nd respondents was not in accordance with law as two other schools run by it had not been included for purpose of determining the staff seniority inter se of the staff of all the Schools run by the 1st respondent; (3) That the Tribunal ought to have on the evidence recorded by it, determined the relative seniority of the petitioner and the 5th respondents.

(3.) It would be useful at this stage to notice that under the Act, the Tribunal exercises, in addition to the specific powers conferred on it under Sec. 10(4) of the Act, all the powers of an appellate Court under the Civil Procedure Code. In fact clause (d) of sub-sec.(4) of the Sec.10 of the Act reads as follows: